


The Effect of Living Backward

by Mortissimo



Category: Watchmen (TV), Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post Episode: s01e05 Little Fear of Lightning, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-18 00:30:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21518971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortissimo/pseuds/Mortissimo
Summary: It took years for Wade to build a partnership with Sister Night, and less than five minutes for it to fall apart.
Relationships: Wade Tillman & Angela Abar
Comments: 11
Kudos: 66





	1. arrested

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for s01e05 "Little Fear of Lightning."

Reflectatine was surprisingly breathable, most of the time. Wade was having trouble catching his breath though, as the sound of Angela's voice, her accusing stare, hung in the air like a lingering smell. He opened his mouth to take in a deeper breath, but the fabric clung to his lips and brushed against his teeth, stretching over his open mouth in a parody of a scream. Nobody was looking at him anyway, he didn't think, but Wade made sure of it, pushing back sharply from his desk and stumbling his way to the nearest restroom, where he locked the door behind him and slid into a heap on the floor. He couldn't breathe with the mask, the  _ useless _ mask, invading his nose and mouth and ears, but he couldn't take it off, either. 

Then he might have to look at himself in the mirror. 

Senator Keene was demonstrably a man who went through pawns like tissues; Wade absolutely believed he'd have the Abars shot in their beds and sleep soundly through it.

_ Forgive me, Sister _ , Wade prayed to nothing he believed in anymore. Even if  _ she _ survived the dose of Nostalgia and the tender care of their own colleagues, there was little hope their friendship would. 

"Please forgive me," Wade whispered harshly, the echo coming back as weak and lost as he felt. 

No, whatever they did to her, whatever the drug did to her, there was little chance of forgiveness. For however much longer Wade lived, he'd have to live without Sister Night.


	2. visitor

The upside was, they'd managed to get the guy's victim away before he could hurt her. The bad news, of course, was that he'd managed to get free of the officers cuffing him, leaving one shot in the head and one bleeding from a gut wound on the pavement. Wade had still been in the building when the shots rang out, checking for any other victims, while Sister Night waited back at her car for the adrenaline from the chase to die down.

After years on the force, running toward the sound of gunshot had become second nature. Wade could hear the muffled sounds of shouting from the other officers around him, but only one set of footsteps running full-out, and it was that way he went, gun in hand and eyes narrowed behind his mask. Sure enough, he caught a flash of movement through a doorway, brown and denim, and without thinking Wade shouldered open the door after.

Then there was a loud noise, and Wade was flat on his back, astonished by the sudden sharpness of his own pain.

The last thing Wade remembered was staring up at the moon and listening, as though from far away, to Sister Night call for help over the radio, again and again, while warm, leather-gloved hands pressed hard against his ribs. He'd wanted to tell her not to bother, feeling the spreading pool under his back, but somehow Wade couldn't find the energy to speak. 

The first thing Wade saw when he, unexpectedly, woke up again, was the buzzing bar of a florescent light. There was a beeping at his side, and a needle in the crook of his arm. So he made it to the hospital after all. One more time Sister Night had saved his life. 

A sudden rustling caught his attention and Wade squinted across the room. At first, he thought the black woman curled into the chair must have been a nurse, but as soon as she saw him move she was out of the chair in a flash, staring down at him with a cross between relief and fury that Wade knew as well as his own reflection. 

"Sister," he mouthed silently, awed, and for the first time he watched his partner's face split into a tired grin.

"Angela," she corrected, her voice rough but immediately familiar. There was a flash of red and silver as she leaned forward, then his hat was settled on his head, and Wade felt his chest crack open in a way that had nothing to do with his injury.

"I love you," he whispered, unable to hold it in a second longer. She hesitated visibly, and Wade knew immediately what she was about to tell him.

"I'm married." He let his eyes roll up to the ceiling and sighed, one corner of his mouth twitching up uncontrollably. 

"Figures," he said, and laughed, then cringed as the laughter tugged on his bullet wound. "I didn't mean it like that anyhow. Not really. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, I just had to say it."

"Wade, you're a hick in a tinfoil hat. If I was gonna be uncomfortable around anyone, it'd be you." Surprised, he glanced down from the ceiling at her, but when their eyes met she grinned, bright and sudden. "But you're you, so I'm not. I know I'm safe with you."


	3. infiltrator

Two months passed with no noticeable Seventh Kavalry activity, then six, and then finally it looked as though the masks had worked. The cops were just about back to their usual level of healthy paranoia.

Sister Night seemed to like him a lot better after his little attack, though they still didn't know one another's real names or faces. It made Wade feel a little like one of the old school vigilantes, trusting his life to someone he barely knew, but trust her he did. And he liked her, God help him. He liked her a lot. In another life, he thought, he could have loved her, and then immediately revised: no, he loved her now, in this life, like he thought he might have loved a sibling had his parents thought to give him any. Wade loved Sister Night like he'd never quite managed to love Cynthia, the kind of love you only get from riding into battle beside someone. 

Not that he told her this. It didn't seem right to lay any more of himself at her feet than he had to for them to be able to work together. Maybe with time, if they got to know one another, they could be friends. Maybe more. Maybe. It'd have to take time.

Then the first black cop died, and then the second, and then it became pretty clear there was a flaw in the Tulsa Police Department's hiring process, and somehow one of the blot-faced bastards had passed the screening. They used Wade's pod, of course, but as on-edge as everyone was, it was hard to get a clear read on any of them. Just about everyone was obsessing constantly over the Kavalry and the murders, and eventually he had to admit to himself and to his captain that it wasn't going to work. 

The interviews had taken him off of their last case for more than a week, leaving Sister Night working with the even newer rookie, Pirate Jenny, and from what Wade had heard, it wasn't going very well for them either. Selfishly, there was a part of Wade that was pleased they'd been spinning their wheels as well, since it meant he and Night would be able to pick up right where they left off, and Jenny could go back to training under Red Scare.

"Looking Glass." He paused in locking the door to his pod, glancing over his shoulder to Sister Night, at the bottom of the stairs.

"Sister Night," he answered, looking back at the lock only long enough to make sure it was tight before descending the stairs to her. As he did, she backed up in slow, measured steps, like she wanted to keep the distance between them clear. Under his mask, Wade frowned.

"What is it?" He asked, and in their stripe of paint he saw Sister Night's eyes narrow. 

"I've got something I need you to look at." She turned and walked away, the hem of her coat inscribing a sharp arc in the air. Unsettled, Wade followed a few paces behind, his unease only growing as he realized she was leading him to the enhanced interrogation rooms.

"Did you find a lead on the arms dealers?" The swish of Night shaking her head under her hood was audible. Just once, to the side and back. She was tense, either angry or afraid, unless she was both. The door she stopped in front of was open, and pitch black inside. She gestured him inside, and if it had been anybody else, Cynthia, Judd, _anybody_ , Wade would have refused.

He went in. 

As his eyes had just begun to think about adjusting, the door slammed behind, and he heard the quiet buzz of Night activating her goggles. 

"Drop your gun and kick it back to me." A cold finger of fear ran down his spine, but Night didn't fit the profile of the infiltrator, and Wade didn't fit the profile of a victim. In fact… _Oh_.

"Don't have it on me," Wade answered truthfully, raising his hands above his head, so she could see they were empty.

"Then take off your coat. Don't turn around." He did, tossing it blindly into where he thought a corner might be. In the absence of other visual stimuli, he could almost see the flash of memory play out in reflection, of a skinny yokel and a soon-to-be-dead punk girl. But that wasn't this.

"Night–"

"Shut up." The clicking of her rosary beads running through her hands was loud in the dark, echoing room. "Have you always been one of them, or did they get you after you joined?" 

"I'm not."

"Bull _shit_ , Glass." The beads thudded hard against leather. Wade's arms were already beginning to ache. "You fit the profile to a goddamn tee, you know that? Even knowing as little about you as I do. And now conveniently your psychic room doesn't work? Bullshit!" The beads cracked against her palm again, then took up a low hum as Night began to twirl them in preparation for a real swing. The next blow wasn't going to hit her glove, and the next blow was going to _hurt_. 

"I know it looks bad, but it ain't me, Night." The beads didn't hit him, but an impulse did, quick and sharp and terrifying. Most of him wanted to shy away, to stay under wraps at all costs, but it was this or it was Night's beads and then, much later, it was Sister Night realizing what she'd done. _You can do this, Wade_ , he thought to himself. _This is your Sister. She's not going to take your mask and leave you naked._

"Let me tell you my name," he ventured, but the whirling of the beads didn't stop.

"We already have your name. Your buddy Johnson sold you out, Frank. And it didn't even take all of his fingernails." For a moment, Wade almost felt bad for whoever Johnson was, but even under this kind of pressure he didn't think Night would've gone all out on a suspect she wasn't sure of. She hadn't actually hit him yet, after all.

"You've got the wrong guy," Wade said, and began to turn toward the whirling noise, nice and slow. Blindly, he let the fingers of one hand fall to the top of his head and catch in the reflectatine, then slowly he began to tug. It wasn't comfortable to take the mask off like this, but he could feel how on-edge Night was, how close to snapping. As close as he was, he could feel the air from the spinning beads on his slowly bared face, could see the very faint green glow of Night's goggles. 

The whirling never slowed, but suddenly Wade found himself blinded by a burst of light. The image of Sister Night, staring, with one hand on the lightswitch and one hand twirling her beads, slowly resolved from the spots in his vision.

"My name is Wade," he told her, his pulse hammering in his throat. "Wade Tillman." He rattled off his birthdate and social security number for good measure. Between her leather hood and her net mask, Sister Night's eyes refused to blink. "I know I look like the enemy. I know what I sound like. But I'm not, Sister." Fervently, Wade wished he could crack open his brain and show her, wished he could share his cynical vision with her so she would know his words for the truth. 

Slowly, Night let her beads slow to a stop, and let her eyes close and her shoulders sag, like a marionette with her strings cut.

" _Jesus_ , Glass. I… I'm sorry." Wade shook his head, already working the mask back down over his forehead.

"Don't be. A little paranoia goes a long way toward keeping you alive." With the reflectatine in place, he could breathe again. The world was once more filtered and safe.

"I guess I'm gonna live to a ripe old age, then," Night sighed, threading her beads through her belt again. "Does this mean I'm supposed to tell you my name now?" There was an edge to her voice, as sharp as broken glass. She would, if he pushed her, but she didn't want to. He'd get her name at the price of her fragile trust.

"Not tonight," Wade said, and watched her posture straighten. "Maybe not ever. Maybe when the time's right. But not tonight."


	4. squidfall

Their first case had taken them all the way out into the boonies, between the city and the looming houses of the rich folks on the rolling plains, where tin shacks dotted the horizon and poor folks still made meth out of broken-down vans. It was a place where those who couldn't make it in Nixonville found themselves, a place where you ended up. It had been raining all day, off and on, the fat droplets sliding down the back of Wade's mask and collecting under his collar, until his shirt was soaked through while his jacket remained merely damp. It was a design flaw he'd have to work on next time. 

Sister Night strode on ahead of him, the rain rolling off her leather hood and coat better than your average duck's back. It hadn't so much as smudged the black band she painted over her eyes, though it hadn't done much to improve her attitude either. She hadn't said as much directly, but Wade suspected she wasn't thrilled to get assigned one of the very few new recruits the force had gotten since White Night, and though he thought he'd been on his very best behavior, it seemed like they'd barely said a handful of words to one another. Wade didn't know her name, of course, and she didn't know his, though he suspected that if he really wanted to, he could probably figure it out. There couldn't have been that many black women who stuck it out in the Tulsa PD. 

They'd been forced to abandon Night's sleek car about a mile back, as they found themselves faced with unpaved roads quickly turning into long mudpits, and the whole walk had been unsheltered by either building or tree. 

When Sister Night stopped abruptly, Wade stumbled to keep himself from running into her back, figuring that'd probably not be a shortcut to her good side.

"Where'd the informant say we could find them?" Night asked, and just as Wade opened his mouth to give explaining the pod another go, he felt a sudden solid  _ plop _ on top of his head. 

It felt like getting tased. 

There was no pain, but every muscle in Wade's body locked up tight at once, as he distantly registered wet squelching noises all around him, on top of him, drowning out every noise but the pounding of his pulse in his ears. Like watching through a television, he could see Sister Night duck her head under her hood and look around for shelter, but there wasn't any. 

There was no escape from the squidfall. 

Wade couldn't breathe. 

They were all around him, all over him, sliding down his arms and wriggling under his collar. It was when one of them finally rolled down the front of his mask, its hideous eye huge from a bare centimeter away, that Wade started screaming. 

He dropped to his knees and locked his hands together over the back of his neck, like they used to make him practice for the bombs as a child, and there was a part of him that recognized having a nervous breakdown in a field in front of his partner wasn't going to be a good start to their working relationship, but he just couldn't make himself stop. 

They were  _ everywhere _ , and then they weren't, or rather they were where they'd fallen, and they were still twitching against his skin and under his legs on the ground, but the impact of the rain and the alien flesh was dulled. It was warm, suddenly, and under the inexplicable and inescapable smell of the squidfall was the smell of warm leather and a faint perfume. There was a pressure on his arms, but it was steady, grounding, and gradually even the dull thuds of the squids died away. In the gradual silence of the absence of his own screams Wade heard Sister Night's voice, strident and steady, in a ceaseless stream of comforting nonsense. Under him and between the layers of his clothing, he felt the flesh begin to melt, and the terror that had locked his body down began to ease its grip. 

Feeling suddenly foolish, he unlaced his fingers and pushed himself back on his heels, blinking at the sun shining through a break in the clouds as Sister Night lifted her coat back off of him.

"Where are you right now?" She asked, her voice softer than he would have imagined it could be. "Where did you go?"

"Hoboken," he answered bluntly, and risked a sidelong glance, under his mask. Sister Night looked bedraggled and awful, her makeup finally starting to run under both rain and squid, but she didn't look angry. If anything, she looked almost as scared as Wade felt.

"Jesus. You were there, weren't you? You saw it, didn't you?" A shudder ran through Wade's body as Night climbed to her feet, offering him a helping hand up out of the mud and the melting squid as well. 

"I did not," Wade answered truthfully, though it felt like a lie. How he dreamed of the sight of something he'd never seen was a mystery. "But I felt it." Sister Night regarded him in silence for a moment, squeezing water and effluvia out of her braid.

"You know what," she said at last, "fuck this. We're going back to the station and I'm gonna get a straight goddamn answer out of that asshole." With that, she turned on her heel and strode back toward the car, and Wade was only too happy to follow. 

Maybe this partnership was going to work out after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm shocked there's nothing in the archive for HBO Watchmen. 
> 
> I love everybody in this show, particularly poor Looking Glass. I sure hope he lives. This note might get depressing soon.


End file.
